Intelligent Insurer spoke to Cooper Gay about the challenges it faced in handling claims from the 2010 Chilean earthquake—an event that has been acknowledged as one of the largest insured catastrophes ever recorded outside the US.

“I was fly-fishing with colleagues when I began to understand the true scale of the disaster. My colleagues and I immediately assembled in one of our cars to discuss how we should approach the incident. Very quickly, we began to comprehend the scale of the exposure that we had in Chile and the magnitude of the task that lay ahead of us. From that moment, it had our full attention. It is a very vivid memory in my mind.”

That is how Peter Dalton, head of claims at Cooper Gay, describes the moments he first heard about the 2010 Chilean earthquake—one of the largest insured catastrophes ever recorded outside the US—and his initial response.

He had to move fast and ensure that his team worked together quickly. Co-ordinating a disaster response plan can be a complex process—especially when the parties involved are located in a variety of geographical locations across the globe. And given the global nature of Cooper Gay’s business, some of the team found themselves right in the heart of the action.

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